Monthly Archives: November 2017

This weekend we had a couple of lucky breaks on lighting, and got some good stuff done! The “nook” light replacement was going to be an antique with a funny hole pattern, and it took some finagling to get the holes to line up with the ceiling box. I figured it out though, and now it’s looking pretty good.

I wasn’t able to get a picture of it turned on that also shows the details, so that’s it.

Kaitlyn spent a while hanging a bunch of little crystal blobs, so we have a bedroom light now:

And then we got the dining room chandelier up! Restoration Hardware screwed up shipping so I had to go back to our old apartment to pick up the part, but it worked out. It turns out it was missing a coupler (maybe some people would call it a nipple) that was threaded on the inside, and a smaller threaded tube that connects to the chandelier body. Of course the packaging was enormous for a part that should have been the size of a piccolo, but at least it’s here.

Progress! Victory! No more floor lamp in the dining room, it’s going to look a lot more normal for our first thanksgiving dinner in the new place!

Finally, you know I need to wrap this post up with a Penny shot. Kaitlyn really wanted to get a Christmas tree, and although the Carrows have a tradition of doing that the day after thanksgiving, I gave in.

She was really unsure of it, but I think she’s used to it now. Also, the lights have voice commands. It’s the future.

Game day? Everyone jokes about it being like Tetris, but this weekend we also had some Jenga and 2048. 2048 because I caught myself shuffling back and forth hoping that something would suddenly condense and give me space to work… Overall I’d say we were victorious, and nothing got too dinged up.

When we moved in there was nowhere to put the refrigerator, the kitchen is tiny, and we think that the previous owner blocked a doorway to fit a fridge. Maybe she had it somewhere else… anyway, this is where we had the delivery folks leave ours.

That’s right in the dining room, and it didn’t let us have enough space for a dining room table with chairs on all sides, and we were just sort of crammed in there. The thing is, the doors are 29″ wide, and the fridge is about 32″x32″ with the doors on. I thought I was going to take off the swinging door to the kitchen and go through that way (avoiding most of the hard wood floor and new paint), but fortunately Kaitlyn was able to talk some sense into me, and pointed out that the living room door is just as wide, and we wouldn’t need to disassemble nearly as much stuff to go that way.

I had to take *everything* off the front of the fridge, and used these cool felt and foam sliders to move it around. It only took two trips to Orchard Supply Hardware to get the mini-socket and torx drivers, but everything came off pretty smoothly. We also taped some cardboard over the floor furnace grate for better sliding. That totally worked.

Anyway, here it is.

Yay! Let’s see it with the wide angle!

If you turn around, here’s what the living room looks like now:

And here’s how the dining room is coming together:

There’s going to be a really cool brass chandelier in there soon, with shades that basically match the living room sconces, but there’s a small obstacle to getting that up. Can you tell what it is?

A replacement part is on the way, but I’m not optimistic that they didn’t just run the wrong size tap into the body of the chandelier. That’s too bad because it’s been discontinued and we wouldn’t be able to exchange it, but it’s a really expensive model that we got for really cheap, so if it comes down to it I’ll make an adapter. I’m confident that I’ll be able to match the threads and make it work if I have to, and should be able to make it invisible, but it might be a little slower and more expensive than I was hoping. Fortunately I know a lot of machine shops and places that can 3D print in stainless steel and brass, so this thing is totally going to happen.

That’s all for now! Here’s a picture of Penny looking really concerned about us moving things around.

Also, one of her skittering around. Also concerned. She will probably be happier than us when the last cardboard box is gone.